


a ruse and a question

by ayadormouse



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Together, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 12:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6907534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayadormouse/pseuds/ayadormouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilbert loves him; Oz copes. (post-manga)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a ruse and a question

It was the moonlight, like gossamer, strewn in thick threads of blue-white across the bedspread that had Oz finally heeding to his boredom. Gil was propped up against the headboard, a common occurrence now, his back slightly curved as he pored over some documents across his lap. Elegant and poised, only Gil could make do with only one arm as easily as he does. Not counting the occasional lean; sometimes he forgot to account for the sudden lack of weight. Oz helped.

Now, as Gil’s eyes scanned the pages, Oz spread himself thin across the bed on his belly, taking an extended interest in Gil’s candidness on an unusually quiet night like tonight.

Oz never stayed the night, but he often let himself in late, and Gil hadn’t questioned it. Had welcomed it, rather. Oz picked through the cues offered to him, shreds of doubt still lingering like Gil had never told him, at the end of his line, when they were at the brink of it all, only for the thread to snap hard like silk, Oz falling into Gil’s embrace and never quite leaving it (and never wanting to).

Gil loved him.

Oz had cried, thick unyielding sobs only muffled by Gil’s shoulder. He could still smell the ash where his shirt was seared through, and it smelled like death.

Since then, their touches were more numerous, more honest, and Oz pinned him and brushed their mouths together, and they never once spoke of it. Oz was no longer sure he’d actually _done_ it, but he’d often find Gil _looking_. It was embarrassing, and stifling, and _Gil loved him._

It was when Gil _wasn’t_ looking that Oz truly felt it, like now, worrying the inside of his lip as if literally ruminating the thought.

So he stretched, the lithe, almost feminine curve to his body making its presence along the blankets. His hands sought out the pillow beneath, freeing it to shove his face against it, almost purring in contentment. Relaxing, he simply lay there, basking in the lamplight and Gil’s presence.

“What are you doing?” Gil asked, then, pausing his work momentarily.

“I’m not doing anything,” he said. And he wasn’t. His eyes _were_ on Gil though, quietly watching with lazy interest as he went about marking another paragraph.

Gil’s eyes shifted to him, to the memo, then to him again.

“...Could I help you with something?”

Oz pressed his tongue to his teeth. “What makes you think I need help, Gil?”

Gil’s hand lowered to his side, his work precariously balanced on his knee opposite him.

“You’re…”

Oz raised a brow in question. “Yeah?”

“ _...Thinking._ ”

The rising current of amusement began to leak its way in. Oz was no longer bored.

“Well I suppose I _am_ doing that,” he said.

Oz watched as Gil grew less and less comfortable, and -- under the pretense of finding a more favorable position -- adjusted his hips so the end seam of his shirt fell at the basin of his lower back, rather than over the waistline of his pants.

“Aren’t you?” Oz asked, keeping his eyes carefully off Gil’s.

“...Yes,” he said, awkwardly, and Oz had to bite the tip of his tongue to stave off the grin, confirming out of the corner of his eye that Gil’s attention was no longer on his book. Instead, his eyes skimmed over the exposed stretch of skin, then decidedly locked onto the text he was no longer reading. They scoured over the page, delving deeply as if to overwrite the last several seconds.

Oz sighed then, emanating innocence, the sound wistful and carefully drawn out. His upper body stretched closer to the pillow he clutched, languorous, eyelids fluttering shut as if on a yawn; his feint dragged his hips forward over the cotton beneath them, forcing his waistline lower by a fraction of an inch. Then, he settled in place, his eyes opening first to the quilt, then to Gil, who blinked down at him, eyes narrowed, his voice tight when he spoke next.

“Are you…” he swallowed, “...doing that on purpose?”

Gil kept his head tipped forward, returning attention to his file. A ruse that Oz would counter with his own.

“Doing what, Gil?”

It was too early for Gil to go red, but alas, he was already staining carmine, and Oz was about reveling in it.

“That... _that,”_ he said, as if that were enough of an explanation, his lips pulling at the edges the way Oz knew they would. “You’re doing something.”

“I am,” Oz relented.

Gil looked at him then.

“I’m _thinking._ ”

What greeted Gil next was the cheeky curve of Oz’s mouth. “ _What…!”_ he responded in a half-glare, now radiating disapproval. “Oz!”

Gil kept a wary eye on him, continuing his work with much less earnest than earlier. It was only when Oz’s eyes fell blankly on the pen etching neat marks of black ink that Gil relaxed. The silver end of it came up to rest against the corner of his mouth as he read.

Oz had given him that pen, he noticed, pleased; he studied the angles of Gil’s hand where he clutched it, close to his mouth.

Gil’s eyes dragged over to his, slow, uneasy, and Oz smiled.

“Still. I’m not doing anything, Gil,” he countered pre-emptively.

“You…you’re _watching.”_

“I am. I’m doing that too. Is it distracting you?” he asked.

“No,” Gil said, too quickly.

Oz held his breath, delighted; it was too soon to let Gil in on his ploy, not when he had him so tightly wound already.

Gil’s fingernail tapped the worn edge of the leather file cover, the sound dull, flat. It was impossible to miss, and the pattern inconsistent. Tap, tap tap, tap tap, tap. This time Oz _wasn’t_ looking, which, with experience, Oz knew was just as heavily apparent as if he were.

_Patience_ , he told himself.

Tap, _tap._ Tap.

Oz moved his wrists a fraction, flattening his hands beneath the pillow he rested on. _Knowing_ it would pull at the seams of his shirt, a minute flicker that would tempt Gil’s glance. He let his eyes fall shut, lips parted a hairswidth. It was a long time before he let his eyes finally crack open, to find Gil looking.

Oz’s brow lifted as if to say ‘yes?’ and Gil was suddenly bundled tight.

Oz found it impressive, albeit a shred disappointing, that he managed not to fidget this time -- _much_.

His pretense was gone; the file cover and papers within lay askew on the bed next to him.

“You want something,” he said. A statement.

“Yes.”

“Since the beginning.”

Oz hummed his agreement.

“So the thinking…?”

“Yes.”

“And the watching?”

“No,” he said, finding relish in Gil’s falter.

Gil’s eyes caught hard on his.

“...But maybe that is part of it, too.”

“ _Oz,”_ he said tightly, the word balanced on the sharp edges of his teeth. Oz knew his patience was wearing thin; he’d need to tread lightly. He ignored the flutter deep in his gut, how his knuckles were slowly turning white where they grasped at fabric. Perhaps _stalling_ was a better word, a novelty where Oz’s usual deep well of confidence was concerned -- at least, where _Gil_ was concerned.

That had been tipped and rendered to a halt when Gil’s hand tugged him by his wrist, those words slipping out with ease, doubtlessly, as if they’d been poised and ready since before Oz could even imagine.

Those flutters threatened to tilt the delicate balance, and Oz was determined to sew that endless leak shut.

“You were too,” he said mildly as if masking darker intentions, and Gil blinked one too many times; confused.

“What?”

“Watching.”

Gil’s eyes darkened, and he pointedly looked aside. “...Not anymore.”

Oz bit his tongue, hard.

“You can,” he said, “Watch, or think.”

Gil found him again; his eyes were haunted, wide and wondering, and it _hurt_ how familiar it was when they were grounded in this newfound intimacy that was hardly clear-cut but _nice_ , so nice that Oz had trouble proceeding in case he’d somehow gotten it all wrong.

But then Gil’s lip twitched, unsure, “Okay.”

Oz took to drawing circles to match the quilting of the bedspread. His fingertips walked themselves to the sleeve hanging loose at Gil’s side, and they caught on the seam at the wrist.

Gil felt it like Oz’s fingers on bare skin.

“Gil,” Oz said, staring at that spot, “How many times have I ordered you to do something?”

“A few.” The ones that came easily to mind were those marred by desperate, blood-soaked pleas, and they fell short, felt wrong in the context. He raked instead over the many petty requests spun purely for Oz’s amusement, though those didn’t quite sit well, either. “Not many, as of late. Just...those you requested when we were younger -- when _I_ was younger.”

Oz almost seemed like a permanent fixture on the bed with how still he held himself; only the steady rise and fall of his chest gave him away. “You’d have to, right? If I ordered you to?”

Gil laughed, a barely-there sound in the back of his throat, “Yes. Of course.”

Oz awakened a bit, now a long curve facing Gil, one palm pressed into the mattress to keep him afloat. His shirt, now utterly disheveled, pulled at every corner and every edge inbetween, and Gil’s eyes hooked onto his face for safekeeping.

“What is it?” Gil asked, voice wavering as it struggled through his suddenly dry throat.

Oz almost hesitated, uneasy, but wanting, _needing_ to assume control, “I want Gil…to do as he pleases. That is...whatever Gil wants, I expect him to do.”

Gil’s mouth opened then shut, the bridge of his nose wrinkling on a blush. His fingers twisted in the fabric at his side. “ _What kind of order is that?!”_

Oz focused somewhere over Gil’s shoulder, heart threatening to leave his ribcage barren. “Whether it’s to think...or watch...or something else, that’s up to Gil.” His eyes flashed back to Gil’s as his mouth wrapped itself around the last words, his inner cheek now between his teeth as he struggled to keep his eyes lidded, impassive.

Gil stared, brows knit together tightly, his lips pressing out slightly the way Oz had come to know; Gil was always so _familiar_ , in childhood, now an adult, which held its own charm that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. It made his eyes burn, his cheeks, his mouth, his lungs. Gil’s voice was dry, intimate when he spoke, “What exactly is it that you…?”

Candid and honest, a voice laden with the roughness of ten, now eleven years of necrotic hell; there were things that Gil had done that even he didn’t know, would like to know, in time.

“...It could be nothing,” Oz offered, a paradox of _knowing_ but not understanding.

“It won’t be nothing!” Gil sputtered in a jumble, afraid to disappoint, but, embarrassingly, revealing his intent. Oz’s veins caught fire at that, blood roaring, eddies that left him his muscles taut and plucked tight.

Gil knelt and tucked his legs beneath him, sitting back on his heels facing Oz, as if tendering himself, resigned and nervous. For as tall and lean as he was, his body could fold itself so neatly, enough that the bed barely dipped on either side of him.

Oz watched him when he looked away, thinking, as if he were given a grand project that he’d need to plan and mull over; it was silly, Oz could see each thought as it surfaced, and he was sure if he weren’t so tense he would laugh, probably laugh until he cried.

“Right, um,” he said finally, breaking the careful framework of the quiet they’d built. He eyed Oz carefully. When Oz did nothing but wait, his lip twitched, “Do I...have to position you too?”

Oz meant to laugh, he did, for his mouth to take up that lilt that meant Gil’s steady descent, but instead he failed to suppress the florid flush of his cheeks, heat searing tracts down every limb, even knowing Gil had likely misspoke.

Gil caught it and flushed himself, belatedly realizing just _what_ he was suggesting--

But he was in much, much more control than Oz, which was hardly fair. Oz had been the one to orchestrate this in the first place, had prompted him, if only to see what could come of it.

“ _Fuck,”_ Gil flustered, “I didn’t mean that--”

Oz _did_ smile then.

“I just meant-- could you sit up...please?”

Oz felt something coil and unfurl, and it took more effort than it should have to pull himself to sitting; it felt like all the blood in his body was everywhere _but_ in his muscles, which didn’t hold the weight they should. He felt Gil’s eyes on him like a brand.

He shuffled to over to mirror him, their knees half a foot apart. Then, and only then, could he meet his eyes, oozing compliance. Something Gil didn’t seem to be expecting; he looked at him a second too long, out of sorts. Oz felt some of his control return then.

Gil’s lashes fell as he looked aside, his next request a quiet murmur from the corner of his mouth, “I meant...closer, if…”

“ _If…?”_ Oz prompted, scooting himself forward until their knees almost touched.

When Gil looked back, he seemed almost surprised to find Oz so close. “If you want, is all.”

“I ordered you, remember?”

“...Yes, but--”

“Then stop thinking. I’m doing that _for_ you, already.”

Oz’s eyes flashed to his, red and sure, imbuing a reminder of his own mortality, his possible end in every sense of the word.

“This isn’t...normal, is it?” Gil asked, laughter on the tip of his tongue.

Oz’s mouth took on a slow stretch, with almost rapt affection, “No. I wouldn’t expect it to be...it’s _Gil_ , after all.”

Gil’s hand fell over his where it rested on his thigh, fingers wrapping around his wrist gently; he leaned his weight there, “I’m going to kiss you...is that okay?”

Oz could only manage a nod before Gil’s mouth pressed over his, his fingers brushing his pulse at the wrist, and Oz shivered; he could no longer tell who was trembling more, fervor negating inexperience when Oz reached up to tug at the curls at Gil’s neck, opening his mouth. Gil let out a sound, long and drawn out, teetering on the edge of misplaced delirium, and he _did_ stop thinking then, kissing him with every ounce of pent-up affection he’d so long denied himself, until his lungs ran so hot he felt they might truly burst.

Oz only allowed him a breath before he met him halfway, their teeth clashing noisily, Oz smothering it with ardency, all give and desire and he was crying.

Gil eased him back.

Oz’s smile was watery, laid bare.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m--”

Gil nodded, patient, and kissed him everywhere all at once, victim to Oz’s unyielding grip. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said, grin crooked and wide and sure.

Oz’s nails raked the nape of his neck. “Then keep _doing_ it.”

Gil leaned in: “Okay.”


End file.
